Meanders and Undulations

Remember the saying,"going around the mountain one more time"?  That's what today's hike felt like. We had worked our first week at Father's Heart Ranch and were hiking with the McClinticks, our partners for this project. (We had worked at Cherry Valley with them four years ago.) The morning looked promising weather wise, with a lovely sunrise.

It wasn't far to the trail head in their jeep, kind of in our neighbourhood. We looked for the start of the Kim Nicol Trail, using the map that the guys had downloaded on the apps on their phones.

The guys march on ahead

Soon a fork appeared in the road, and Bill and Betsy wanted to take the short way. Only, the short way went straight up a hill.

Bill and Betsy zoom up the hill.










"Let's take this road to the right," I said to Terry, thinking we would meet our friends on the other side of the hill.





So Terry and I take the circuitous route, and meander back and forth, carefully following the trail markers. There was always one more curve to go around, and always those undulating hills, up and down, although not as steep as the first one.
No sign of our friends, though.
Finally they call, and with relief, we meet, kind of in the middle.

Terry walks slightly behind me, to make sure I stay on the trail. The sand is hard to walk in, and I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.
There was not much to see anyway, only scruffy low creosote bushes.
I think that's the same mountain in the background that we see from our campsite!

I like going downhill much better. At times Terry held my hand, and I felt more secure. Like holding the hand of my heavenly Father, I thought, so I can stay on the "straight and narrow." It was warm enough to shed my hoodie, and a breeze made the sun bearable.

Three hours later, we were back at the jeep, and congratulated ourselves on having made it. I wouldn't say I actually enjoyed the hike, but I was glad to have walked 8.6 km (5.3 miles).

Benedictus- Blessings for 2020

I'm starting the new year with declaring my blessings as I blog again, from Desert Hot Springs this time, our January 2020 destination. The Father's Heart Ranch is a home for abused and neglected boys. Here is a view of our back yard, with the low hills defined by morning shadows. The creosote bush in the foreground eventually held Terry's hummingbird feeder, and we have been blessed with regular visits from one male Costa's Hummingbird.

It has been pleasantly warm, with temperatures in the low twenties, Celsius, or low seventies, Fahrenheit

 We had left Las Vegas the day before, about six hours away. When Terry pushed in the rear slide,                                                                   and was dismantling the support arm for it, he noticed that the

clip that held the arm in place was completely broken in half. We could have fallen on our heads, in bed!

The clip on the right is the broken one, while the left one was cracked, heading for a potential break.
From Desert Hot Springs Terry phoned an RV place, but it was too late in the day to make it there before it closed.
John, the maintenance man introduced himself to us, and mentioned a place about a mile down the road. I vaguely remembered this place from the last time we visited the Coachella Valley four years ago. It looked like the kind of store along a country road that would stock a wide variety of interesting parts, but surely not what we needed.
We just about went by it, so nondescript was its appearance.
"That was it!"  I called out.
"Oh, I thought it was just advertising for it."  says Terry.
I stayed in the car, thinking it was just another junky parts store.
A few minutes later Terry came out with two brand new clips in his hand!

Here are the new clips, installed in a jiffy.
The slide rolls out, manually, on two tracks, Terry pulling on it from the outside, while I push from inside for good measure.
We were so relieved that we didn't have to spend another night with the slide in, effectively denying us the use of our  seating and table space.
Isn't God good?






Isaiah 65:24 says
I will answer them before they even call to me.
While they are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers! [NLT]

What I didn't know was that Terry had already prayed about this problem. Then he said, "Thank you, Lord!"